In a Far Country: The True Story of a Mission, a Marriage, and the Remarkable Reindeer Rescue of 1898

by John Taliaferro

Book Overview

In the fall of 1897, eight whaling ships became trapped in the ice on Alaska's northern coast. Without relief, two hundred whalers would starve to death by winter's end. Mercifully, an extraordinary... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1586482211
• ISBN13: 9781586482213
• Release Date: November 2006
• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Excellent adventure

This is a little known adventure story of missionary people, personalities, government polititians, native Americans, & foreigners. It has graphic illustrations of problems and errors made when dealing with different cultures in unknown and adverse climates. I enjoyed reading it and would recommend it.

Life on the Edge of Civilization

It must have taken individuals of rare inner strength to even have the desire to go establish a Christian mission at Cape Prince of Whales, 55 miles across the Bering Strait to Russia and only 70 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Even more surprising to me was the number of women, single or married to missionaries, who went as well. Tom and Ellen Lopp were both single, that is until six weeks after they met. This is a story of the mission at Cape Prince of Wales, the Lopp's and of a dramatic rescue where Tom and seven Eskimo herders drove a heard of reindeer some 700 miles to rescue stranded sailors whose ships had become frozen in the ice. This was a trip to rival the other famous trip in the cold, but up until now has been little known. All in all, a most interesting book about life on the very edge of civilization.

epic adventure

This book rightly takes its place among the other tales of heroic arctic travel. It is well researched, the writing is sprightly, and the characterizations both compassionate and vivid.

Unsung Heroes

This was a fascinating book. It takes an honest look at subjects as diverse as; culture clashes, mission work, family struggles, man verses nature, government inner workings, and humanity's dual nature (good and evil). A whole cast of unsung heroes finally get their day. Unfortunately, it comes about 100 years too late. Although the author resides in our current day of political correctness, his characters do not. Frankly, I find them refreshing. The Alaskan frontier is shown as the mishmash that it must have been. Competing groups vied for their own goals and dreams. They inevitably mixed and influenced each other resulting in the lines that formerly demarcated distinct people groups being erased and blurred. The outcomes of this amalgamation ranged from laudable triumphs to scandalous tragedies. For some reason (maybe growing up in the hot South), I have always enjoyed books about Polar Regions. The first book I ever read was Jack London's Call of the Wild. I read In a Far Country in less than a week because the story kept my interest. It is one of the few books that I really hated to complete. I did not want to leave the characters.

Scholarly Page-Turner

John Taliaferro's moving and exciting book is a beautifully researched and satisfying adventure/romance. He captures the ambiguity and humanity of both sincere do-gooders and mercenary outcasts encountering an ancient and vulnerable but canny culture in the far north. His excellent bibliography is generous and useful.